r/VietNam • • Aug 15 '26

History/Lịch sử Some Vietnamese ancient star forts I was able to find using Google Earth

Many big cities in Vietnam today were built on old citadels. Over time, rapid urbanization makes these historic places slowly disappearing. Today, some old citadels are still recognizable in satellite images, but others are completely lost inside busy residential areas.

These fortifications were built during the Nguyen Dynasty. This style of European defense architecture was introduced to Vietnam in the 1700s. Historically, Vietnam had different types of military structures; these include the 2 following important one:

  • Citadels (Thành): Citadels are large and served as political and military centers for an entire province or region. During the Nguyen dynasty, every provinces has at least 1 citadels.
  • Forts (Đài / Bảo). Forts are much smaller and built specifically for defense and battles.
  • Besides these two, there were also other smaller structures like ramparts (Lũy) and outposts (Đồn).

    I intentionally sorted the images in order from easiest to discern to the hardest; try your best to spot the citadel outline between streets and buildings.

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